Rebalance
by ashevre
Summary: An unexpected discovery changes everything Derek thought he knew about John Connor. And Sarah Connor.


When he takes his squad out that morning, Derek is pissed. He's been back in the bunker for less than a week, and there are just too many mysteries. The first, why did the tin cans let him go? It makes no sense to him.

The next, where the hell is his brother and why can't anyone tell him anything other than "top secret mission for the boss?"

The final mystery is how Connor manages to always be somewhere else whenever he tries to track him down and ask about this top secret mission Kyle's away on.

So he nearly chews out his second when the guy says they've found some sort of basement in what used to be a Skynet facility, before the Resistance kicked their tin asses out. Nearly. But he managed to rein it in. This is good, right? Finding something Skynet left behind. Kyle may not be here, but the fight is still going, and he has a job to do.

He grits his teeth, nods, and says "Let's check it out."

There's a coded lock on the thing, old fashioned, from when people used to spin numbered dials around into different combinations. Without thinking, he looks to his left for Kyle to futz with the thing, but Kyle isn't there. Billy is. And that, right there, is a knot he doesn't know how to untangle, either. This man is a friend, possibly his best friend. But he's got the whole damn judgment day riding around on his shoulders. This mess they're in is his fault.

Billy nods at him. "I'll get it open," he says.

Billy's as good as his word, and in a few minutes, they're opening a door that hasn't been opened in decades.

"Who's there?"

Derek blinks, eyes adjusting to the darkness inside the vault. There's an old man with a broken chair leg in his hand, ready to swing at anything that comes near. For a moment-one breath taking moment, Derek thinks it's his grandfather. But the old man died before Judgment Day, so no way is this guy him. Even if he looks like gramps. Hair's too long, clothing too ragged.

"Hold your horses, there, Grandpa," he says. And that's when something happens that makes him think this is all a dream.

The old guy squints at him, from extraordinarily familiar blue eyes. "Derek?"

And the whole world tilts. And rebalances.

"Who the hell are you?" he asks. He sounds pissed off even to himself.

The guy laughs-laughs!-and shakes his head. "You'd never believe me. I need to see John Connor. Now."

The old man doesn't say much other than "I need to see John Connor," for the next two hours as they walk to camp and Derek tries to explain to him that you don't get to just see the boss like that. Their security is better than that.

The old guy stops, looks at him, steady. "I've been trapped in that goddamned vault for 40 years. Maybe longer. You gonna tell me a man that's been locked in a vault that long but knows who the hell John Connor is, isn't gonna make Connor just a little bit curious?"

"How do we know you're not a Grey?" Everything about this guy makes Derek want to hit something. At the same time, he has this urge to hug the guy like he used to hug Gramps, back when he was a kid and the world wasn't completely fucked. There's an idea stirring in his mind... but he shakes it away. Reality doesn't work that way.

"You think they're gonna pick a 60 year old man to be their spy? Come on."

"You could be a tin can. One of the new ones," Derek starts warming to this theory. "Maybe they made you to fool me. Maybe that's why they questioned us and then let us go. To get one of their machines close to Connor."

Billy snorts. "There's one pretty close already."

Derek frowns. He doesn't like to think about her. "Yeah, but that didn't work, did it? An old man, that's different."

"I'm not a machine," the guy says. "Look at the dogs."

Derek looks. They're nearly in camp, and none of the patrol dogs have paid any attention to them. Not one growl.

"Listen. You can leave me out here. Have Billy watch me, or Ben. You trust them, right? You go tell Connor a... a friend of his mother's is looking for him. Okay? You tell him I met his mom at TechNoir."

And there's something both desperate and determined in the old man's eyes. So Derek shrugs. "Fine. But it's not gonna work. Connor's too busy to talk to me. He's sure as hell gonna be too busy to talk to you."

"Just tell him about TechNoir, okay?"

That does make him feel a little bit better. A friend of Connor's mother. If it's true, that might explain why the guy knows who Connor is. They said Sarah Connor predicted Judgment Day. Maybe this guy was one of her crew who got caught. Derek nods. "Just don't hold your breath."

As he expected, Connor's nowhere to be seen. It's beginning to feel deliberate. The man doesn't want to tell him what happened to Kyle. A cold knot settles into his stomach.

He spots the girl robot, which gives him an idea. "Hey. You." She ignores him. "Cameron!" That catches her attention and she turns to look at him.

"You give Connor a message for me. Tell him I got an old guy out topside saying he knew Connor's mother. Met her at TechNoir."

He can practically see the robot's gears churning behind her eyes. "Yes. John Connor will want to know that."

She turns and runs off down a hallway. The thing actually runs.

"What the hell did we find in that vault?" he asks. He gets no answer, not that he expected one.

Derek heads back topside, where Billy still has his eye on the old man. Not 10 minutes later the girl robot comes out the door.

"Follow me," she says. So they do, the old guy taking up the lead, Derek following after him even though he knows he's not supposed to. There's no way he's gonna let this mystery escape him.

She takes them straight to Connor's office. Derek hopes that the girl robot will forget he's there and he can slip in with them, but then she looks at him. Instead of telling him to get lost, she just nods.

Connor is behind his desk, face tired, eyes intent on the door as they enter.

"Sir," the old guy says.

"Jesus Christ..." it's barely a whisper, but Derek hears it. Connor is staring at the guy like someone just killed his puppy. "You lived."

Connor is up and out of his chair faster than you can blink, and he grabs the old guy in a bear hug. "You lived!" This time it's a shout.

Connor is crying, holding onto the old guy like he's never gonna let go. And the old man himself has tears in his eyes and wraps his arms around Connor.

"She told me you died," Connor says.

"She... she's okay?" the old guy asks. But it doesn't sound like he believes it.

"She died, but not then. And not the machines. Cancer. A lot later. You saved her." Connor steps back, rubs the back of his hand against his eyes, dashing away tears. "She loved you. For the rest of her life, she always loved you. I wanted to tell you. I always wanted to tell you, but I couldn't dare."

The old guy nods. "You have her eyes."

Connor chokes out a laugh. "Yeah, and your smile."

Holy shit. This guy is Connor's father. No one ever talked about his father, just about his mother. The sainted Sarah Connor. Derek feels sick for a second, thinking about how his brother carried around her snap in his pocket. All that time, this guy was locked away in a high security vault in Skynet territory.

The old guy looks just as shocked as Derek is.

"Wait a minute," Derek cuts in. It's clear from the way Connor's eyes widen that he hadn't known Derek was in the room. Huh. "This guy is your father, and he didn't know it? Your mother never told him? Shit, that's cold."

Connor's shaking his head no. "She didn't know until after he died... After..." Connor steps back, sits on the edge of his desk staring at the old guy. Who is staring right back.

"She..." the old man swallows. "You're my son?"

"Yeah," Connor says. "Sorry I never sent you a card for father's day."

"That's why you gave me the picture..."

At that, Derek's head snaps around so he's staring at the old guy. Who looks just like his grandfather used to look. Then he looks at Connor. Remembers how people used to joke that Connor and Kyle looked more like brothers than him and Kyle. That they had the same smile. That Connor gave Kyle a picture of his mother. That Kyle disappeared and no one knew where to.

"No. No. Fucking. Way."

"Derek-" the old guy says.

"You're not Kyle. I don't believe it!"

At that, the old man laughs. "I told you you'd never believe me."

And he can't. It's impossible. Twenty-four years olds don't travel back in time. They don't disappear without a trace and then show up again a few weeks later as old men. Yet as he looks from Connor to Kyle (and he's realizing it _must_ be Kyle) so many things fall into place. The strange look Connor would get on his face sometimes when he was talking to Kyle. Or to Derek. The gestures he figured Connor must have picked up from Kyle in captivity, or maybe Kyle picked them up from Connor. The snap shot of Sarah Connor.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he says.


End file.
